In sending a copy of this pamphlet some years ago to the Editor of
this volume, Archdeacon Fuller (now Bishop of Niagara), said:--This able
and interesting document ... was drawn out from the late Bishop by the
growing dissatisfaction amongst the clergy and laity, in consequence of
Bishop Strachan managing the whole of the clergy reserve fund, without
consulting anybody, and managing to get several thousand pounds of
arrears paid to himself, as Bishop, and his protege, the present Bishop
[Bethune], made Archdeacon of York, with a salary of L365 a year as
Archdeacon, while he could not find means to pay the missionaries more
than L100 a year.

CHAPTER XLIX.

1846-1848.

Re-Union of the British and Canadian Conferences.

During and before the period of the Metcalfe Controversy events were
transpiring in Methodist circles in which Dr. Ryerson took an active
part, and in which he was deeply interested.[130]

Important correspondence on the relations to each other of the British
and Canadian Conferences took place in 1842. But as the issue of the
contest between these Conferences was so prolonged, and involved so many
important questions--religious and public--I think it desirable to give
a brief preliminary outline of the origin of the difficulties between
the two bodies. This is the more necessary, as Dr. Ryerson's own
personal history and conduct became, from a variety of circumstances,
most prominently mixed up with these controversies. His letters to the
Government on the subject, and to the Missionary Secretaries, now first
published, are also valuable Methodist historical documents--although
they partake largely of a personal character--as he was the foremost
figure in all of these connexional contests. They are highly
characteristic of the courage and self-sacrifice of the writer.

Methodism, after its introduction into Upper Canada in 1790, was
organized into a Church by preachers from the United States. In 1811,
when Upper Canada was on the eve of being the theatre of war with the
United States, several American preachers who had been appointed to
Canada declined to come, while those here (Messrs. Roads and Densmore)
applied to the Canadian Government in 1812 for leave to return to their
own country.[131] Nevertheless, after the war, and on the representation
of persons prompted by high churchmen, the London Wesleyan Missionary
Society sent out missionaries to four of the larger towns in Upper
Canad